When we decided to do embryo donation we had a pretty vague idea of how to proceed. The site we used, Miracles Waiting, leaves recipient selection up to the donor. Sites with a political agenda, such as those run by religious groups, are much more discriminatory in the criteria they use to allow consideration of recipients. We felt we were the best ones to pick the people we wanted as recipients.
We had a vague outline of what we wanted. Since the embryos are genetically Jewish, we wanted Jewish recipients. But it soon became obvious that, for us, it would be crucial for the recipients to be lesbians. We could readily understand why lesbians facing infertility would choose to receive embryos: one member of the couple would likely be a good candidate to carry a pregnancy to term, and adoption is not possible for lesbians who refuse to lie about their relationship.
Heterosexuals who want embryos might want to experience childbirth or control the maternal environment in a way they could not if they adopted. But adoption is readily available to heterosexual couples, and we know many who have done it.
From some of the emails we received, it seemed there might be other factors involved for straight couples who wanted embryos: an unwillingness to go through a home study; lack of money for adoption; problems in the family that would make adoption difficult; disinterest in adopting non-white children; or impatience, since the adoption process can take some time. None of these factors made us enthusiastic about donating to straight people.
The advantage of selecting a lesbian couple would be that we would not have to worry about recipients' homophobic reaction to our family. Openness in families is important to us. It would be hard for a lesbian couple to do what most straight embryo recipients do: lie to their children about the kids' origen from donor gametes. And picking lesbians would be our own little contribution to correcting the bias that exists against gay people starting families. We would use "reverse discrimination" to remove a boulder from the path of at least one lesbian couple on the road to parenthood.
But which couple? We were surprised to get so many responses to our listing from lesbian couples, and amazed that so many of these couples had at least one Jewish partner. We actually agreed to donate to the very first couple that contacted us, just because we didn't know any better and there wasn't anything obviously wrong with them. Until there was.
Tune in next time to find out why that donation fell through.
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
EMBRYO "ADOPTION" -- IS IT DANGEROUS FOR INFERTILE FAMILIES?
Embryo donation agencies run by right-wing Christian groups want to define every two-celled fertilized egg in your fertility clinic's freezer as a baby. That's why they call what is legally embryo donation "embryo adoption". These conservative groups promote their anti-choice agenda using millions of dollars in tax-payer money "donated" to them by the religious zealots who control the US White House.
Why should an infertile couple care whether a fertilized egg is a baby or not? Because after getting a pre-embryo defined as a person, the next obvious step is to outlaw or restrict both In Vitro Fertilization and embryo donation.
Patients who use IVF and have excess frozen embryos could be forced to give them to other infertile couples, no matter how they feel about having additional, unknown offspring floating around. A private decision, about which few are neutral, will be dictated by evangelical Christians to all, no matter what their beliefs.
In Catholic countries such as Italy, where separation between church and state is not a right, this has already happened. Couples who use IVF to conceive their children must implant all the resulting embryos at once. They are not allowed to freeze embryos for future use.
Besides the obvious disadvantage of having to transfer lots of embryos and take the risk of birth defects from twins, triplets or higher-order multiples, there is a more severe problem with this: Why, in God's name, is the Pope making medical decisions? If he is a doctor, he is certainly only a doctor of divinity, not a physician. I would no more look to his advice about how to perform a medical procedure than I would the janitor at my office.
The religious zealots who are trying to dictate US policy on fertility treatment and other matters belong neither in our doctors' offices nor in our bedrooms. They should not be allowed to set policy on any aspect of fertility treatment, family law or really anything except what goes on within the four walls of their churches. The idea that our government is funneling our tax dollars to pay for their bigoted approach to embryo donation is criminal.
Again, I urge all embryo donors and recipients to use only Miracles Waiting. It is the only embryo donation site I know run by normal people who have dealt with fertility issues, not wolves in priests' clothing.
Why should an infertile couple care whether a fertilized egg is a baby or not? Because after getting a pre-embryo defined as a person, the next obvious step is to outlaw or restrict both In Vitro Fertilization and embryo donation.
Patients who use IVF and have excess frozen embryos could be forced to give them to other infertile couples, no matter how they feel about having additional, unknown offspring floating around. A private decision, about which few are neutral, will be dictated by evangelical Christians to all, no matter what their beliefs.
In Catholic countries such as Italy, where separation between church and state is not a right, this has already happened. Couples who use IVF to conceive their children must implant all the resulting embryos at once. They are not allowed to freeze embryos for future use.
Besides the obvious disadvantage of having to transfer lots of embryos and take the risk of birth defects from twins, triplets or higher-order multiples, there is a more severe problem with this: Why, in God's name, is the Pope making medical decisions? If he is a doctor, he is certainly only a doctor of divinity, not a physician. I would no more look to his advice about how to perform a medical procedure than I would the janitor at my office.
The religious zealots who are trying to dictate US policy on fertility treatment and other matters belong neither in our doctors' offices nor in our bedrooms. They should not be allowed to set policy on any aspect of fertility treatment, family law or really anything except what goes on within the four walls of their churches. The idea that our government is funneling our tax dollars to pay for their bigoted approach to embryo donation is criminal.
Again, I urge all embryo donors and recipients to use only Miracles Waiting. It is the only embryo donation site I know run by normal people who have dealt with fertility issues, not wolves in priests' clothing.
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